Wendell Berry is inimitable. The paradox and source of that claim lies not in some grand scheme or complex philosophy, But rather in (what editor Norman Wirzba calls) his ''sustained attention to the particular.'' The product of this attention to ''agrarian'' (here we mean biological and ecological) concerns is a delight, even a wonder in their intrinsic worth and interdependence within the whole of creation -- which Berry believes has been damaged by the perversion of industrialism and urban life. The Art of the Common Place is a penetrating retrospective of Berry's finest work, offering us h... View More...
When the Puritans arrived in the New World to carry out the colonization they saw as divinely mandated, they were confronted by the American wilderness. Part of their theology led them to view the natural environment as "a temple of God" in which they should glorify and serve its creator. The larger prevailing theological view, however, saw this vast continent as "the Devil's Territories" needing to be conquered and cultivated for God's Kingdom. These contradictory designations gave rise to an ambivalence regarding the character of this land and humanity's proper relation to it. Loving God's W... View More...
"Reading the morning newspaper is the realist's morning prayer."--G. W. F. Hegel Whenever we reach for our phones or scan a newspaper to get "caught up," we are being not merely informed but also formed. News consumption can shape our sense of belonging, how we judge the value of our lives, and even how our brains function. Christians mustn't let the news replace prayer as Hegel envisioned, but neither should we simply discard the daily feed. We need a better understanding of what the news is for and how to read it well. Jeffrey Bilbro invites readers to take a step back and gain some theologi... View More...
For over fifty years, Wendell Berry has argued that our most pressing ecological and cultural need is a renewed formal intelligence -- a mode of thinking and acting that fosters the health of the earth and its beings. Yet the present industrial economy prioritizes a technical, self-centered way of relating to the world that often demands and rewards busyness over thoughtful observation, independence over relationships, and replacing over repairing. Such a system is both unsustainable and results in destructive, far-reaching consequences for our society and land.In Virtues of Renewal: Wendell B... View More...
For over fifty years, Wendell Berry has argued that our most pressing ecological and cultural need is a renewed formal intelligence -- a mode of thinking and acting that fosters the health of the earth and its beings. Yet the present industrial economy prioritizes a technical, self-centered way of relating to the world that often demands and rewards busyness over thoughtful observation, independence over relationships, and replacing over repairing. Such a system is both unsustainable and results in destructive, far-reaching consequences for our society and land.In Virtues of Renewal: Wendell B... View More...
Other Walk is a series of autobiographical pieces by the master of reflection and slow timeThroughout his life, Sven Birkerts, one of the country's foremost literary critics, has carved out time for himself--to walk, to swim, to read, to contemplate. Now in his late fifties, he has clocked up many thousands of hours of reflection. It shows in his prose, which proceeds at a refreshingly deliberative pace as it draws the reader into his patterns and rhythms. In this deeply appealing and engaging collection of essays, Birkerts looks back through his own life, as well as at the generations before ... View More...
Elizabeth Bishop's prose is not nearly as well known as her poetry, but she was a dazzling and compelling prose writer too, as the publication of her letters has shown. Her stories are often on the borderline of memoir, and vice versa. From her college days, she could find the most astonishing yet thoroughly apt metaphors to illuminate her ideas. This volume--edited by the poet, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic, and Bishop scholar Lloyd Schwartz--includes virtually all her published shorter prose pieces and a number of prose works not published until after her death. Here are her famous as well a... View More...
"On Immunity is a book I've recommended too many times to count--a searching, empathetic, ultimately unassailable argument, not just for vaccination but for thoroughly acknowledging our interdependence, and for all that becomes necessary and possible once we do. Written before COVID, it nonetheless speaks directly to the concerns of the pandemic era--to the fact that we are dangerous as well as vulnerable, to the way collective well-being and individual self-interest are configured at odds to one another when they are fundamentally intertwined."--Jia Tolentino In this bold, fascinating book, E... View More...
"On Immunity is a book I've recommended too many times to count--a searching, empathetic, ultimately unassailable argument, not just for vaccination but for thoroughly acknowledging our interdependence, and for all that becomes necessary and possible once we do. Written before COVID, it nonetheless speaks directly to the concerns of the pandemic era--to the fact that we are dangerous as well as vulnerable, to the way collective well-being and individual self-interest are configured at odds to one another when they are fundamentally intertwined."--Jia Tolentino In this bold, fascinating book, E... View More...
This is the story of three people: acclaimed writer Julia Blackburn; her father, Thomas--a poet and alcoholic with an addiction to barbiturates; and her mother, Rosalie--a flirtatious painter with no boundaries. After Julia's parents divorced, her mother took in male lodgers with the hope they would become her lovers. When one of the lodgers began an affair with Julia, competitive Rosalie was devastated; he later committed suicide, shattering whatever relationship between mother and daughter remained. After thirty years, Rosalie, diagnosed with leukemia, came to live with Julia for the last mo... View More...
This is the story of three people: acclaimed writer Julia Blackburn; her father, Thomas--a poet and alcoholic with an addiction to barbiturates; and her mother, Rosalie--a flirtatious painter with no boundaries. After Julia's parents divorced, her mother took in male lodgers with the hope they would become her lovers. When one of the lodgers began an affair with Julia, competitive Rosalie was devastated; he later committed suicide, shattering whatever relationship between mother and daughter remained. After thirty years, Rosalie, diagnosed with leukemia, came to live with Julia for the last mo... View More...
The second volume in Harold Bloom's series of works which reveal his theory of revisionism, demonstrating his theory that patterns of imagery in poems represent both a response to and a defence against the influence of precursor poems. View More...
NATIONAL BESTSELLERNOMINATED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD "Heroically brave, formidably learned... The Western Canon is a passionate demonstration of why some writers have triumphantly escaped the oblivion in which time buries almost all human effort. It inspires hope... that what humanity has long cherished, posterity will also." -The New York Times Book ReviewLiterary critic Harold Bloom's The Western Canon is more than a required reading list -- it is a vision. Infused with a love of learning, compelling in its arguments for a unifying written culture, it argues brilliantly ag... View More...
